If you are in the transportation business, then you're in the real estate business, and you ought to support smart growth. Regardless of what terminology you use, you know what it is, and there are good reasons to support it. The first obstacle to making smart growth and transportation part of the normal mind-set is convincing the consumer. It may be that you have done too good a job of providing transportation. That is a surprising message. But a survey done by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and the National Association of Realtors asked people who had purchased homes in the past 5 years about the most important aspects of buying a home. They found that the most important factors by far were larger homes, at an affordable price, in a good neighborhood, with proximity to work coming in a distant third. Clearly, the buyers don't quite get it. Gary Garczynski, president of NAHB, commented that the survey demonstrates that home buyers are quite conscious of the trade-offs they make when buying a home. Gregg Logan pointed out in his presentation that people tend to drive for value. I think unless we can convince people that they should stay for value, there'll be a continuing contradiction between individual decisions and public policy. The mantra in real estate is location, location, location. We need to get the message across that being there is the best transportation solution.
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